Community Safety

Hi All,

I'm a new resident to the area, and have never been a home owner before. I know the area north of Bloor between Dundas and Dufferin has a reputation for property crime. Any recommendations regarding securing personal property? Has anyone had any problems?

I have typically lived on higher floors of low-rise appartment buildings, so have never really had to think about these issues.

- Joanna

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looking out for each other, learn who belongs and who dont...

its generally a small group of individuals who are repeatedly committing the crimes, some of which who we are well aware of and it is frustrating to no end that they keep getting released so soon by police or should i say the courts...

what you can do if you already havent tried to do so is communicate more with your neighbors, get to know the people on your street , the long time neighbors can give you the heads up on who to look out for..You can also hear word of mouth info from them about any thefts that are happening or have happened to other neighbors, just knowing a thief has recently taken stuff will make everyone more aware and be on the watch and ready to call police if they see something suspicious,,,,,you'd be surprised the neighbor you argue with about a parking space today is the guy who will be the first to call police when he sees someone breaking into your car tomorrow...when it comes to crime were all on the same page despite any minor disagreements we may have as neighbors....

Ive talked to pretty well all of the businesses owners in the area, and warned them about buying stolen goods from thieves. Told them that when they buy that stolen stuff that they are actually promoting the thieves actions and are in essence themselves stealing from us their neighbors...many of them told me that they buy the stuff because they were afraid that if they didnt that the thieves would return and steal from them,,,,but one auto shop owner told me that he bought something from the thieves and while they were selling him stuff they were scoping out his garage, and you guessed it they returned some time later anyway and still robbed him of all his tools...Anyway i told them all that its best that we the home owners and residents as well as all the businesses in the community stick together on this matter ,,some seemed to agree and said they would just say no next time they were approached by the thieves to buy stolen stuff or stuff that seemed priced too good to be true..lol.....

TIPS

- lock up your extension ladders in your yard,,,they like to steal those...
- hang bells or noise makers of some sort on the gates to your back yards
- install motion sensor lights in your alley ways leading to your yards, and even put one in your yard.
- If your neighbors yappy dog starts to bark dont complain to yourself , but get up and go see what he is barking at,,,most dogs will only bark at strangers or people that dont belong on or near their property...
.

learning who your neighbors are all around you is a way to know if you should call police if someone strange is poking around your neighbors yards...look out for each other.....

oh and by getting to know your neighbors i dont mean stick your nose into their personal affairs, i have neighbors who ive know for all my life and to this day i still dont know or care what they do for a living cause their personal business is not my concern,,They are nice people, we say hi to each other when we see each other and make pleasant small talk,,,so i know who lives in their home and they recognize who lives in ours so if we see strangers poking about each others property either of us wont hesitate to call police..... get to know people and dont be afraid if you cant speak the same language,,,saying hello or a simple friendly hand wave and a simple smile or even a node goes along way too.....if people see your trying to be friendly they might let you into their comfort zone one day and return the gesture....but those simple actions will make them aware of you and if someone strange tries to break into your property they will recognize them as not being you and call police to report a stranger on your property trying to break in...

One last depressing story - lately things have been ok on sterling , last summer we had a stretch of things stolen from backyards, I mentioned it to jack fava too, think he may have passed the info on to many of you as well.,,,one incident was that my neighbor had his sons bike stolen,,,,the sad thing is that 2 weeks later he saw the man (adult thief) on his sons bike. I told him to report it to the police,,,he promptly called the police and waited for 2 hours and no cops came, he told me he ended up calling three times and still no cops came,,,its so sad when you even see the crook on the stolen bike and know where the crook lives and still the police dont bother to show up, was this because the man has a thick east Indian accent and he was being discriminated against by police, or is it our whole community in general that is discriminated against by police, it really make one wonder,,,, a few weeks later he wanted me and several other neighbors to get sticks and bats since the police werent any help and go to the crooks house and hand out justice ourselves as he said they would have done in his old country, but we convinced him otherwise....so to this day his kids bike has not been returned...very frustrating indeed....on one hand we encourage people to call police when a crime is committed but on the other hand after they call the local police just ignore the call ...

any way hope some of this was helpful ,,,

and i just want to make a request -
we know a small handful of you have drug problems, personally drugs are not my cup of tea, but if your into that sort of stuff then thats your problem knock yourself out buddy..All we ask is that when you buy your dope what ever you do please dont ask the dealers to come to our community to bring you your dope,,when one of those jerks comes then others will think its ok for them to come to our community too,,, we dont want that garbage coming to our community or hanging about in our community trying to sell there dope,,if you really must buy drugs then go to the dope dealers house to get it, andi dont invite that jerk here to our community....besides most of the drug dealer are know to us and the police so if your trying to keep your drug use hidden then having the jerk walk or drive up to your front door is not fooling anyone here..

this is a decent residential community with families and children and im sure Jacks group, and our group and the many others who live and work in the area intend to keep it a safe community..

peace ...